YouTube Doctorate

There may be a lot of you who don’t remember life before the internet. I grew up in a very small community, so by the time access hit us I’d already experienced some wonderfully painful things like: always having to go to the library or the encyclopedia to look something up.

Why do I mention this? Well, with how expensive college is lately, a lot of people are wondering is it even worth it? Especially now with how if you have an internet connection you can learn pretty much anything.

Now there are some careers I think do require training beyond just the internet, but in our technological age there will likely be a lot more that don’t. Take for example, graphic design. Do you really need a degree for it? Not really. Or film? Nope, not really either. These are both fields that will hire experience as much or more so than degrees—especially if you have a killer portfolio.

I always kid with people that the BFF got her YouTube doctorate to take out my stitches (but she did). There are just some things that we can learn just as well, for free, on our own.

I use the likes of YouTube and Lynda.com to learn a lot of things, and often if I’m passionate about those things, I learn a lot more than I would shelling out the dough for a bloated tuition.

A friend of mine says she draws right in Photoshop. When I do the Scribbles, I do it on paper first, and then import. Why not remove a couple of steps from the process? So where do I turn? YouTube.

I followed his tutorial, and came up with this.

And then I decided to get creative. One of my favorite things to doodle, for some reason, is a turtle in a top hat. Using the techniques I just learned, I applied them to my new drawing.

This I learned using YouTube as my university. It kind of gives new meaning to a “free” education, doesn’t it? I may or may not give the scribbles shading, depending on how fast I need them done, but it was certainly a lot easier drawing them on the computer rather than importing them.

And while I like Photoshop, I much prefer the capabilities Illustrator has to offer, so I’ve been trying my hand at drawing in it. There are a few more advantages, like that it’s vector art which means you can upscale as big as you like without losing quality. But I’m not as confident with shading as I am with Photoshop. It’s all a learning experience.

Postscript, my degree is in film. And while I do make media for my work, a lot more of what I do is graphic design, which is a hobby I turned into a career. Granted some of my college experience taught me about setting up a frame, but a lot of it came from working with other graphic designers, YouTube doctorates, Lynda.com training, and just plain figuring things out.

Don’t know how to do something? Ask the internet. It knows. Some things may take a lot more trial and error (like drawing in Illustrator). But if you’ve got the passion, you can become an expert at nearly anything.

And it makes for much easier writing research.

Do you have a YouTube doctorate in anything? Do you remember what research or learning was like pre-internet age? Do you think college is as worthwhile now as it was in the past? What do you see for the future of education?

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16 thoughts on “YouTube Doctorate”

Don’t have a Youtube Doctorate, but I do remember the days of using the family Encyclopedia collection. If what I needed wasn’t in there, I had to walk to the library. It really wasn’t as bad as people think. I’d say it was a lot more streamlined since you didn’t have to sift through sites that are opinions and not facts.

College . . . tough one. I went to college for a BA in Writing Arts and I feel that it was not worth my time. The degree that is. I believe the experience of college was a great transition from high school to the ‘real world’. One gets to be away and on their own to some extent, but you don’t need college for that. Not sure where it’s going to go. I would like to think it won’t go entirely on-line, but it seems to be heading that way.

Maybe it’ll be VR college, so you can all enter the holo-chamber with the teacher and still call information up as you’re learning. I could see that happening in the near future. Think of Google Glasses. You could have the teacher lecturing in front of you while you’re on an airplane or walking to the store. Technology, if done right, will make education all the cooler.

I have to admit I am from the pre internet era. My family had a set of colored junior encyclopedia’s and sometimes when my mom wasn’t looking I cut out the pictures from the pages to put on my papers so they looked better…lol no cut and paste from a computer back then.

Hopefully it’ll bring the costs down significantly so it’s more affordable for everyone. I sort of envy the future generations, though at the same time, I did like the actual hands-on experiences of my own education. They both have their advantages.

Youtube is a great resource for a lot of things. I do a lot of research for stories and history using documentaries, and reading online articles. For example, I was working on a version of the Elves and the Shoemaker, and found a video detailing how a business hand-makes men’s business shoes.
My brother often uses Youtube to learn how to fix things around the house – the dryer, dishwasher, etc.

I’ve just finished reading a novel set early in the 20th C, where a daughter had no idea about her mothers life as a published author, and I though to myself that would never happen now. We have so little chance to be mysterious.